The Eustace Diaries
by Doricaa.reni
Summary: I know it's a bit short, but I thought if I did too many entries the story would fade away and get boring. My first time writing one of these. One shot. Eustace's diary on board the Dawn Treader, and epilogue. I know he kept a diary in "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" but here's my spin on it. Gladly receive feedback ... have fun reading!


**15th August 1942**

Been stuck on the Dawn Treader (Dawn Dumper more like) for about nine days by now. Absolutely _spartan_ conditions and that Caspian has given me the worst cabin of course. They all hate me because, unlike them, I am practical and intelligent (and have occasional flashes of humour that these trolls would never understand). There's some idiot who wears a frightful mask so he looks as though he has a bull's head. I really do think that grown men are much too old to be playing at dressing up, but then that's just Narnian madness for you! I have seen enough to know that this Narnia is a completely barmy country. Alright, so I haven't actually seen any of it since we're at sea, but if the Lone Islands are anything to go by ... they're so primitive they even condone slave-trade! It was all thanks to _me _of course that the Governor was punished but of course it was that Caspian who took all the credit. He calls himself King. I ask you! What kind of King is unable to control the domains in his realm?

The inside of the ship is terrible too. I mentioned the frankly appalling conditions. They don't even have decent stationery! I have to write with this troublesome feather pen which I have to keep dipping in ink (which is quite simply medieval) and the tip keeps coming off. How am I meant to write my unbiased and illustrous memoirs like this? (I doubt anyone on this tub has even _heard_ of memoirs.)

Not to mention there is a fierce storm raging (at least I don't get seasick!) and all the water casks have somehow got leaks and we all have to go on rations. And what with all the heat we are all parched. There's still plenty of the wine virtually untouched but even those idiots realise it would only make them thirstier. Almost everyone is groaning and being sick everywhere which is just disgusting. Needless to say I thought it wise to keep myself below in that hole called a cabin. I thought they might appreciate my trying not to bother them but when one of the masts fell over they had a go at _me_, saying I was a lazy little *AHEM* (it's too offensive to write down). I have never felt so discriminated against but there's not much I can do, so I went up on deck and made a great and admirable effort to help right the mast, but that Caspian had a belly go at me and called me so many foul names, I was quite sure I didn't want to help such a raving bully.

Naturally I told him _exactly _what I thought of him (I shall not include it here) and the crew all gasped like women and that Caspian went quite red. But then he bellowed at me and I was dragged below decks, to a perfectly foul corner which made the Black Hole of Calcutta look like a palace. It's dank and dark and I managed to decorate the walls a bit when I threw up everywhere (because of the smell, I don't get seasick). I was sitting there for hours until one of the sailors showed compassion and let me out. They had to send someone to clean it out afterwards. Ha ha ha! It was a pity I wasn't sick over that Caspian (he might have learned some humility then) but never mind. Maybe next time!

**17th August 1942**

The storm, thank goodness, is abating. I'm telling you, those sailors are cowardly sheep in disguise. During the worst moments of the storm I attempted to keep up the morale by telling them that so many of them were seasick that if the ship did sink then it would at least put them out of their misery. You'd have thought they'd be grateful for my words of comfort but they brandished their fists and me and told me to be off before I lost two of my teeth. Which is open threatening, but again, I get the blame.

All the poultry has been washed aboard and even the food is being rationed out now! I get the least of course, which is hardly fair, especially when I was the one who had been abducted and brought on this stupid voyage in the first place. Caspian is very sneaky with the food and thinks I don't notice! Lucy for some reason offered me some of hers but that interfering pig-headed Edmund wouldn't let her. I would have liked to spit in his face but Alberta has often said that only the lowest of the low do that. I'll teach him a lesson somehow though!

Lucy has been the only kind person and even _she's_ an overbearing stuck-up prig. I wish I could pay them out somehow.

**19th August 1942**

A new day, a new face on board the Dawn Dumper. We found one of those "Lost Lords" and he is mad into the bargain. I think he is called Lord Rhoop. Lord Loopy more like! He really is a prize mentallist.

I'm bored out of my mind on this rotten tub. It's not true what they say, you know, about only boring people getting bored. I mean how am I meant to keep myself entertained on the Dawn Tub all day?

**20th August 1942**

I swear one day I will kill that mouse. I didn't tell you about that little horror Reepicheep? He is awful. He is a talking mouse and to be sure he never stops talking. He's about two feet tall and a dangerous lunatic to boot. He carries a sword with him. I ask you, a mouse carrying a sword. As you may know, I despise performing animals. Not to mention he is a dangerous brute. He attacked me yesterday just because I happened to pick up an orange off the floor. And then he had the nerve to say I was stealing it. Then Caspian began shouting and threatening (as usual) and said that the next person caught "stealing" would be severely punished. He was looking at me the whole time as he said this. Can't think why. And he never mentioned what this so-called severe punishment was. When will he learn that making empty threats gets you no respect? I should like to take him down a peg or two, but I have a feeling that I would only be punished for attempting to make Caspian the fool a better person. I wish I could get off this stupid boat and go somewhere where my talents are actually appreciated.

And then he had the nerve to say that he understood my point of view! Odious stuck up pig. I shall be glad when this voyage is over and I'll report him to the British Consul. We'll see who's getting threatened then!

**23rd August 1942**

I was given no food today. That Caspian claimed that I was "showing signs of mutinous behaviour". I have never heard such wicked lies in my life. That Caspian has no shame and no integrity. I doubt he's even _heard _of the word. He can't have done, he's too stupid. He claimed he had a tutor but I sincerely doubt it.

**25th August 1942**

You will not believe this. Not only is that Caspian a lying coward, he's also a hypocrite. Only yesterday he was saying we shouldn't drink the wine because it would make us thirstier. Then who did I catch helping himself to some in the hours everyone was slaving away? That's not how _he _tells the story though, but then I should have known better than to expect _him _to be honest. Lying old dotard. It appears to be some kind of insult in these parts. I am not sure what it means, but it must be something quite bad judging by everyone's reaction when I called Caspian that this morning.

By reward for standing up to his tyrannical oppression I was given no lunch. The crew are all too scared to make a stand but hopefully they'll all start following my shining example. Caspian threatened to burn my book of memoirs (he wanted to stop me documenting his regime in pen and ink) and I calmly explained to him that I was merely making notes of this ship's voyage to add to my memoirs. I wasn't technically doing anything wrong, I was just writing my honest and unbiased views.

He suddenly laughed and said I was welcome to my memoirs but he said that unless I wrote something remotely honest he would stop supplying me with ink (blackmail, of course), and when he says "honest" he means I must tell everyone that he was a wonderful hero the whole voyage. This I could not do, for then it would not be a true representation of my traumatising experience.

Caspian then had the effrontery to call my memoirs "a pile of lies and fabrications which would be better off tossed onto a dung heap". Of course I took great offence at such a slanderous remark and threw a full pot of ink into his face. It seemed a pity to waste good ink, but it was worth it for the uproar. Caspian just stood there with dark blue ink all over his foul visage. They rubbed his face with a cloth to try and get it off but they couldn't use any water for it would have wasted several days worth of supply. They managed to get most of it off but his face was still stained with the stuff. He went bright red but combined with the blue he was a rather pleasant shade of purple. He bellowed for ages and I thought I would go deaf. He yelled at me that he was banning me from any further access to ink in the future, and I would have to make do without my precious memoirs. It was at this point that I realised I was running dangerously low on ink. Outrageous! How am I, as an intellectual, going to be able to record my life story combined with historical events if I cannot write it down? I tried to explain this to Caspian, but he would have none of it.

I shall just have to write my memoirs in secret and in privacy – not easy to come by on this trip. I'm telling you, when I get back to Cambridge I shall send this to a publisher and Caspian will never get another moment's peace. He will be hounded by the world's press! And I shall become a best-selling world-famous historian/writer! People will write biographies about me! I can see it now – "_Eustace Clarence Scrubb is a world-famous British historian and writer. His most famous piece of work is "_The King who didn't deserve it", _an unbiased documentation and exposé on corruption and tyranny in the Kingdom of Narnia and its king, Caspian X. Mr Scrubb was abducted by Caspian and recorded his voyage, at great personal risk ..."_

Dear God I had better stop daydreaming. Harold and Alberta wouldn't approve at all. And I think I've just run out of ink.

**25th August 1952**

Eustace looked down at the battered old diary in amusement. He hadn't seen it for years, in fact he had completely forgotten he had had it. The corner of his mouth twitched as he read through the words he had written. He closed his eyes, remembering ten years back. When he and Lucy and Edmund burst from the portrait, they had all looked at one another and shaken their heads. A look had passed between them, a silent moment of understanding. This was just one of those things they would never, in their lives, share with anyone. It was their secret, theirs alone.

He looked down again at the last entry of the diary. He could have laughed at his younger self, and shook himself back to reality. People would never write books about him. "_The King who Didn't Deserve it_" would never be written. The words he now held in his hand were merely childish rantings and fantasies.

Smiling, he tossed the old notebook into the roaring fireplace.


End file.
